TIME LAPSE MOVIES   

Time Lapse Motion Control Prototype

Marchand and Paul - with the support of Greg and Tarren from Festo Cape Town - are currently busy building and testing a time lapse motion control prototype.

The prototype is composed of a dolly cart built with 6 mm aluminium plates and a series of 3.3 m long double rail tracks that attached together. We are using 3 lengths (almost 10 m) at the moment but the intention is to have at least a 30-m track in the future. Each track is mounted at about 1-m height from ground level on 6 telescopic aluminium poles and tighten with 6 nylon strings and pegs plus 2 at the each end of the whole track.

The dolly cart contains 2 Festo MTR-DC1 intelligent servo motors which are responsible for the linear and rotary movements.

The Festo FC20 PLC controls the 2 movements as well as the triggering of the camera (focus and release).

The Nikon D2X digital camera is fixed on a video tripod head on top of the rotary plate.

We are using two 12 v DC / 12 Ah sealed lead-acid batteries in series to supply 24 v DC to the dolly cart via a 10 m 2-core round wire.

For our pre-tests, the linear movement is about 5 mm, the rotary movement about 0.05 degre and the time interval between each photo is 7 sec. The PLC sends a first signal to focus, then after 1 sec a second signal to shoot, and finally after another 1 sec, the 2 consecutive signals for the 2 motors.

The next step is to feed the PLC controller with a series of values that will control the movement of each motor at each step as well as the time interval between each shot in order to have full control and flexibility.

More photos on the dolly cart ...

Check this page for further news ...

And of course see the first time lapse movies ...